Whose Tradition?

Discourses on the Built Environment

Nezar AlSayyad, Mark Gillem, David Moffat, Nezar AlSayyad, Mark Gillem, David Moffat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317276036
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

In seeking to answer the question Whose Tradition? this book pursues four themes: Place: Whose Nation, Whose City?; People: Whose Indigeneity?; Colonialism: Whose Architecture?; and Time: Whose Identity?
Following Nezar AlSayyad's Prologue, contributors addressing the first theme take examples from Indonesia, Myanmar and Brazil to explore how traditions rooted in a particular place can be claimed by various groups whose purposes may be at odds with one another. With examples from Hong Kong, a Santal village in eastern India and the city of Kuala Lumpur, contributors investigate the concept of indigeneity, the second theme, and its changing meaning in an increasingly globalized milieu from colonial to post-colonial times. Contributors to the third theme examine the lingering effects of colonial rule in altering present-day narratives of architectural identity, taking examples from Guam, Brazil, and Portugal and its former colony, Mozambique. Addressing the final theme, contributors take examples from Africa and the United States to demonstrate how traditions construct identities, and in turn how identities inform the interpretation and manipulation of tradition within contexts of socio-cultural transformation in which such identities are in flux and even threatened. The book ends with two reflective pieces: the first drawing a comparison between a sense of 'home' and a sense of tradition; the second emphasizing how the very concept of a tradition is an attempt to pin down something that is inherently in flux.

Part I

Place: Whose Nation, Whose City?

Chapter 1

Tradition and Its Aftermath: Jakarta’s Urban Politics

Abidin Kusno

The question ‘Whose tradition?’ is one of authorship, subjectivity, and recognition of the work of intellectuals in the field of traditions. It also acknowledges the modernity of tradition, as contemporary practices are reworked or reconstituted to create ruptures with, or renew, older cultural regimes (AlSayyad, 2014). If the built environment is a representation of such work by social groups struggling for hegemony, then the question also recognizes it as an arena of contestation among different cultural agencies. In this chapter, I contribute to this discussion by looking at urban politics in Jakarta, where the local state, represented by a governor (often under pressure from different sections of the population), today has broad power to make decisions affecting urban form and life.

Urban politics are well known in Western societies, but the phenomenon has not, historically, been present everywhere, especially in Indonesia. Indeed, the Indonesian term for urban politics, politik kota, only emerged after the collapse of Suharto’s authoritarian rule in 1998, because it was only then that the central government granted cities the power to determine their own policies and promote public participation through the election of governors and local councils. This point was made by Suryono Herlambang, a researcher of urban planning, in his introduction to Politik Kota dan Hak Warga Kota (Urban Politics and the Rights of Urban Citizens) (2006), a collection of newspaper essays from 2000 to 2006. With new laws guaranteeing regional autonomy, the direct election of local council members and governors, and a proliferation of critical commentary about daily life in the metropolitan press (Kompas), Herlambang asked, ‘[Has] urban politics … returned to the city?’

Since colonial times, a hierarchical tradition of central government prevented municipalities in Indonesia from gaining power over their own affairs. Decentralization, however, now means that local/city governments may make decisions that affect urban form and life. The new policy, which started after the end of Suharto’s authoritarian regime, has also allowed local elections to choose the head of local government and with this a new style of local politics has emerged where an unexpected individual outside the circle of the political elites, could be elected governor. It has allowed, for instance, Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi) and Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (known as Ahok, and a member of the Christian Chinese minority), neither of whom had any previous connection to Jakarta, to become Governors of the city. The new policy has also given rise to new civic and democratic values which are often translated into populist politics and programmes such as ‘good governance’, the practice of which ranges from transparency and accountability to free bus travel and free health care. Urban politics thus has become more popular than national politics as the city has replaced the state as the arena for the representations of popular values. While it may still be difficult to separate the effects of municipal from national decision-making (especially in the capital of Jakarta), as disputes surface regularly over authorities, jurisdictions, and competencies, urban politics nevertheless are now an essential part of life in Indonesia and have come to play an increasing role in the production of space.

Any new configuration of political practices, however, also entails an invention of tradition, as well as disputes over ‘Whose tradition?’. To explore these issues, I will focus on a particular period in the history of Jakarta: the Jokowi-Ahok era. This began when Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo was elected governor in 2012, and it has continued through the term of his successor, Basuki ‘Ahok’ Purnama.¹ Yet, while I use the policies of Jokowi and Ahok as a main frame of reference, the chapter’s focus (including its temporal frame) is not intended to limit discussion. Indeed, as far as the themes of this book are concerned, I hope to raise the issue of how a new agent of social order may create entirely new claims to tradition in the production of the built environment (in this case, in a place where most important economic and political decisions were once made at a national, or even an international, level).

Further, the chapter is not intended to document, either comprehensively or in detail, the dynamics of the whole era. It simply seeks to tease out some components of urban politics to encourage further research, not only on the given timeframe but also on the increasingly important role of urban politics in (Southeast) Asian societies. As urban politics becomes a new site for the production of cultural hegemony and physical form in the region, there is much to learn from the way Jokowi and Ahok have sought to constitute a new tradition of urban politics. In particular, I will show how the two men have legitimized their rule through a ‘politics of time’, which has problematized previous political practices.

Mental Revolution

On 10 May 2014, the then-presidential candidate Jokowi outlined a vision for how he would lead the country in the next 5 years, if elected:

The reforms implemented in Indonesia since the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998 were merely directing towards an institutional revamp. None has yet focused on the paradigm, mindset, or the culture of politics in Indonesia in the context of nation-building. In order for a meaningful and sustainable change to take into effect, and in accordance with Indonesia’s Proclamation of Independence … a mental revolution is much required … there is still a large number of traditions (tradisi) or a kind of culture (budaya) that is evolving and growing rapidly creating repression as in the New Order. These range from corruption, intolerance of differences, greed, selfishness, a tendency to use violence in problem solving, legal harassment, and opportunism. These are still going on, with some growing more rampant… It is time for Indonesia to take corrective action … by imposing a mental revolution which creates a new paradigm, political culture, and nation-building approach which is more humane, suitable to the Nusantara cultural traits, easy and coherent… The use of the term ‘revolution’ is not excessive. This is because Indonesia needs a breakthrough in its political culture to wholesomely put an end to all the bad practices that have long been left to spread since the era of the New Order till the present… I have started this movement when leading Surakarta and since 2012 as the Governor of Jakarta… Insya Allah [God willing], this effort will develop further and expand to become a truly national movement as mandated by Bung Karno [a reference to Sukarno, the first President of Indonesia], as the revolution itself has not ended. Indonesian Mental Revolution has just begun.²

I quote this statement at length because it indicates how the term ‘mental revolution’ became a manifesto for Jokowi’s presidential campaign. It also shows clearly how the need for such a ‘mental revolution’ was defined by the practices of its enemies – that is, by those who profited from traditions that flourished during the repressive era of the New Order (and which still remain). Jokowi was suggesting that only after Indonesians combated these traditions could they restore ‘the original character of the nation’, which he defined as ‘santun, berbudi pekerti, ramah dan bergotong royong’ (Kompas, 2014). These words are impossible to translate accurately, but they suggest everything that is good, from ‘grace’ and ‘kindness’ to ‘mutual help’. Of course, Indonesians intrinsically know that if one can be all these things, one will have no enemies. But what is important here is that these are terms for human relations, which, in the language of governance, refer to an ideal relation between the ruler and the ruled.

During his campaign, Jokowi also occasionally used the term ‘corruption’, and related it to mentality and traditions. While it is not easy to unravel the relation between tradisi and sikap mental (mental attitude), Jokowi has argued that a corrupt work ethic evolved under the former regime into a tradisi (tradition) and budaya (culture). Any Indonesian bureaucrat would likely acknowledge that corruption is wrong, and that it is often caused by a wrong sikap mental (Server, 1996; Smith, 1971). But Jokowi was in effect explaining that corruption, collusion, and nepotism had taken root in the nation because they had grown into a tradition and culture.³ For Jokowi, a tradition may be formed over time, and when it is allowed to run as deep as in Indonesia under the New Order, a ‘revolusi mental’ is needed to uproot it.

Jokowi has thus sought to combat the New Order’s traditions – that is, the whole practice associated broadly with corruption. It may be useful here to note that Jokowi’s vision, or mission, is consistent with the populism that has marked the politics of Southeast Asia since the financial crisis of the late 1990s and the collapse of authoritarian regimes in many parts of the region (Mizuno and Phongpaichit, 2009). ‘Populist politics’ – as one can learn, for instance, from Ernesto Laclau (2005) – are based on two propositions (Anderson, 2009). First is the sense that a society ought to be based on the principle of equality – an idea similar to that of the nation. For Jokowi, this is represented by the ‘original character’ of the nation, attained through a quest for what he understands as ‘balanced development’. Second, the force of a populist movement is based on its opposition to an enemy, which, in the case of Jokowi, is represented by the former New Order regime. Jokowi’s war against the legacy of Suharto, then, must be understood as taking place not only at the level of performance but, more substantially, at the level of mentality – of culture and traditions. The question of ‘Whose tradition?’ thus lies at the centre of politics in Jakarta and Indonesia today.

It is useful also to recognize that the traditions Jokowi seeks to combat to restore the nation’s mentality are associated with conditions of ‘informality’ developed in both state and civil society. Nezar AlSayyad and Ananya Roy (2004) conceptualized informality as a ‘mode’, a ‘modality’, a ‘method’, and a ‘way of being’ that governs the life of cities in both developed countries and the Global South. In so doing, they raised two important points. First, they called attention to informality as a practice involving both the ruler and the ruled, the elite and the underclass. In terms of the built environment, informality thus covers both shantytowns and upper-class gated compounds, for both are based on violations, such as of land-use regulations. This means the relevant conceptual divide needs to be revised as ‘not between formality and informality but rather [as] a differentiation within informality’ (Roy, 2005, p. 149). Second, AlSayyad claimed that informality may be produced by the state. And in this sense, the range of informality can be stretched to include the list of terms identified by Jokowi as traditions of Suharto’s regime: ‘corruption, intolerance of differences, greed, selfishness, a tendency to use violence in problem solving, legal harassment, and opportunism’. Jokowi’s ‘mental revolution’ thus is a call for a direction opposite to, or different from, the traditions of informality of the Suharto era.

For the sake of analysis, I have repacked the list Jokowi has identified as traditions of the Suharto era (which continue today) in the following section as five urban traditions of informality – each of which is governed and performed by different social groups.

The Five Traditions of Urban Politics

The Oligarchic Tradition

In one of the very few works on urban governance in Jakarta, Manasse Malo and Peter Nas (1996) described (at the height of Suharto’s authoritarian regime) the workings of power in the city as follows:

The most important groups operating in the Jakarta urban arena are central and local administration, the military, the business community, and the common people. The military and the administration form one governmental strategic group that is very dominant in administrative affairs and urban planning. The business community, including the banks, industry, and large developers also has strategic resources at its disposal, and in co-operation with the government strategic group it effectively determines the development of Jakarta by the construction of offices, malls and houses. (Malo and Nas, 1996, p. 130)

Malo and Nas indicated that these three elements – business groups, the state, and the military – determined the development of Jakarta, because they possessed the power to shape the city. The city, then, was not simply run by business groups, because the military colluded with the head of state to make sure there were businesses and assets to share. It should therefore be possible to understand much of the city’s history during this period by researching the actions (or collaborations) of these three groups (Cowherd, 2002; Leaf, 1991). Such an investigation would surely also uncover a story of urban informality as conducted by the elites. This is the very tradition that Jokowi wishes to overcome, for corruption, legal harassment, and using force to settle matters are clearly products of this elite alliance.

This emphasis on the power of the elites in the work of Malo and Nas is understandable, as the object of their analysis is the authoritarian state.⁴ They thus assume that power operates only top-down. Yet, by focusing only on an elite coalition behind the transformation of space in the city, they overlook a peculiar (or not so peculiar?) tradition of Indonesian politics – namely, the role of middlemen, often operating as thugs (preman), shadowy officials (oknum), and brokers (perantara). These individuals or groups operate as a hinge between the top and the bottom, and their authority in many cases is ‘subcontracted’ to them by the powerful to administer to the common people at the local level (Onghokham, 2003; Simone, 2014).

The Subcontracted Tradition

Contrary to dominant perception (as represented by Malo and Nas), the city of Jakarta has never been completely run from the top. Such a perception typically rel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• The Editors and Contributors
• Prologue
• Part I: Place: Whose Nation, Whose City?
• Part II: People: Whose Indigeneity?
• Part III: Colonialism: Whose Architecture?
• Part IV: Time: Whose Identity?
• Reflections
• Index